Bierocks (German Stuffed Rolls)
The flavorful combination of beef and cabbage stuffed in a fluffy roll makes German Bierocks the perfect hand-held food to go along with your Oktoberfest beer.
Oktoberfest in Munich
How we wish we were back in Munich right now.
Saturday marked the start of a huge, two week long celebration of German culture, heritage, and tradition.
Oktoberfest!
Some of you may be thinking, "Wait. I thought Oktoberfest was all about the beer?"
Ok, fine.
People from around the world have gathered in Munich to celebrate these things through one, much more specific thing.
BEER.
Oktoberfest: The World's Largest Fair
This 16-day festival, held each year in Munich, Germany is considered the world's largest fair, bringing over 6 million people to that Bavarian city each year.
To the locals the festival is known as "die Wiesn" after the name of the festival area "Theresienwiese" (literally "meadow of Therese").
The history of this festival goes all the way back to 1810, but we'll go into the rich history later this week.
Of the attendees, almost ¾ are from the surrounding Bavarian region, with the last ¼ being made up of visitors from all over the world.
These visitors consume liters upon millions of liters of Oktoberfest beer, which must meet special purity requirements.
Basically, it's one HUGE festival!
What are German bierocks?
We thought these bierocks would be a great way to kick off the next two weeks, since, what goes better with beer, than a hand-held all-in-one meal?
Bierocks (pronounced bee-ROK) are yeast-raised rolls that are filled with a savory filling.
They originated in Eastern Europe and are very common among German immigrants to the US.
(You can find a similar hand-held meal from Eastern Europe in the Russian piroshki.)
The bread that surrounds the cabbage, beef, and onion filling in these bierocks is dense, eggy, and so delicious that it could be a meal in itself.
But it is also a perfect complement to the savory filling.
It's sturdy enough to stand up to the filling, but soft enough that you'd swear you were eating your favorite, fluffy dinner roll.
Ingredients
There are two components to bierocks: the bread and the filling.
The bread is a basic yeast dough with milk, sugar, butter, and an egg to make it rich, soft, and fluffy.
The filling is pretty straightforward, made of sautéed beef, onions, and cabbage.
How to make bierocks
For what looks like it could be a complicated dish, bierocks are quite simple to make. The most time consuming part is the time it takes for the bread dough to rise, and that's all hands-off time.
We make use of this time to make the filling, which is just a simple sauteed mixture of beef, cabbage, and seasonings.
Once your dough is risen and ready, you simply divide it into eight portions and roll each into a ball. These balls get flattened a bit, so you can add the filling and create a pocket.
The important part is making sure the dough gets pinched tightly closed around the filling before baking.
You don't want any filling to spill out before you take a bite!
How to freeze and reheat bierocks
While fresh these rolls will keep for a week in an airtight container in the refrigerator, we like to make a double batch whenever we make them, because they freeze SO well.
We freeze them after baking and store them in an airtight container or zipper sealed bag. When we are ready to eat them, they just need to be thawed on the counter for a few hours (or in the refrigerator overnight).
Then a quick stint in the microwave is really all you need to get them nice a warm! (But they are even better warmed in an oven or toaster oven at 300F for 10-15 minutes.)
It's so handy to be able to pull a couple frozen rolls out of the freezer and reheat them for a quick meal!
What to serve with bierocks
Typically bierocks are a festival food, designed to be eaten with a beer in your other hand.
That being said, we have been known to pack them for lunch or even enjoy them for a sit-down dinner.
If we desire a side, we tend towards a green vegetable or salad. And you really can't go wrong adding a little more cabbage in the way of German sauerkraut.
Other hand pies
If you love hand-held meals as much as we do, you will want to check out these other dishes from around the world.
- Russian piroshki (very similar to bierocks)
- Egyptian hawawshi (like a hamburger stuffed in a pita)
- Panamanian carimañolas (a meat stew wrapped in a cassava dough)
- Chilean empanadas de pino (beef empanadas with a surprising flavor pop)
- Bolivian empanadas de pollo (fried chicken empanadas)
Bierocks (German Stuffed Rolls)
The flavorful beef and cabbage stuffed in a fluffy roll makes German Bierocks the perfect hand-held food to go along with your Oktoberfest beer.
Ingredients
For the Dough
- 1 c milk, warmed to 80F
- ¼ c white sugar
- 2 ¼ teaspoon active dry yeast (1 package)
- 4 c unbleached all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoon salted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 egg, beaten
- ¾ teaspoon salt
For the Filling
- ½ lb ground beef (85-90% lean)
- ½ onion, diced
- 3 c shredded cabbage (about ¼ of a medium head)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Last But Not Least
- 1 tablespoon milk
Instructions
For the Dough
- In a large mixing bowl, mix milk and sugar to dissolve the sugar. Sprinkle yeast over the milk mixture and let stand for 5-10 minutes, until the yeast softens and starts to foam.
- Whisk the mixture to combine and whisk in 2 c of flour.
- Add melted butter, egg, and salt. Whisk to incorporate.
- Stir in the remaining flour ¼ c at a time, using only as much as you need to get the dough to come together. Turn the dough onto your counter and knead, for 10-15 min, until a soft, smooth dough forms, adding flour as needed. (Your finished dough should be tacky, but not stick to your hand or your kneading surface.)
- Shape dough into a round; place it in a greased bowl, turning to coat the dough. Cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap or a damp towel and place in a warm, draft-free place to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
For the Filling
- While the dough rises, make your filling. In a large non-stick frying pan, brown meat over medium-high until mostly cooked, 5-7 min.
- Drain as much of the grease from the pan as you can, while not losing the meat from the pan. Return the pan to the heat and add onions. Cook 2-3 min, until they begin to soften.
- Add cabbage and cook 7-10 minutes, until cabbage is tender.
- Remove filling from heat and season with salt and pepper.
Putting it all together
- Knock back the risen dough and turn it onto your work surface.
- Divide dough into 8 balls (roughly 3 oz each). Flatten each ball to a circle 4-5” in diameter. (If the dough springs back, flatten as much as you can, cover, and let the dough rest for 3-5 min before attempting to flatten further.)
- Spoon 2 large tablespoons of filling onto the center of each circle, leaving the edges clear.
- Bring the edges together and pinch them to seal the dough completely. Continue until all the dough and filling has been used.
- Place the shaped bierocks on a greased baking sheet and let rise, covered 30-45 min, until roughly 1.5x their original size.
- During the last 10 minutes of rising time preheat your oven to 375F.
- Brush the bierocks lightly with milk and bake for 20-25 min, until golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped.
- Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.
Notes
These rolls freeze well after baking. To eat, just take them out of the freezer in the morning and they will be thaw by lunchtime. Warm them in the microwave for 1-2 minutes in 30 second increments to heat through.
Want to convert to WEIGHT measurements? Have a look at our ingredient conversion guide.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
8Serving Size:
1 rollAmount Per Serving: Calories: 362
We've updated our pictures since we first shared this recipe on Curious Cuisiniere, but we've left some originals here, in case you've found us in the past and are looking for that old, familiar image.
Sarah founded Curious in 2010 as a way to save her recipe creations and share culinary experiences. Her love for cultural cuisines was instilled early by her French Canadian Grandmother. Her experience in the kitchen and in recipe development comes from over 10 years working in professional kitchens. She has traveled extensively and enjoys bringing the flavors of her travels back to create easy-to-make recipes.
My dough came out so dry it wouldn’t even stick together. Is it really only 1 cup of milk and 4 cups of flour??
Hi Christina. It sounds like you may not have started with 2 cups and added the remaining flour slowly just until the dough came together.
Thank you for this recipe and your storyline that didn't loose it. I am looking forward to using your recipes and I absolutely appreciate your experiences and passion to bring in the world through our taste buds; Something I intentionally try to bring to my family. Thank you for making that easier.
Thank you! So glad you're enjoying our recipes!
These were my first ever homemade rolls/bread and they turned out great! The only thing I wish there were more of was the filling inside.
Thank you for this easy to follow recipe and for helping get over my fear of baking!
So glad you tried these!
@JeNaya, hey we make it an easy meal and make it like sloppy joe!! Then you can have as much meat as you want!! We melt cheese in and add a tad bit of mustard for a creamy sloppy sauce!!
@JeNaya,best part about reciepes is tweaking them too make them your own make as much filling and make them as fat and any size you want thats what my mom and i do
#8...Of course you mean to cool on a rack, not cook on the rack.
Yes. Thank you for letting us know about our typo!
Came across this recipe and have added it to my collection. Growing up in Nebraska, these were known as Runzas (a regional Nebraska based chain selling them), if you called them Bierocks, we knew you were from Kansas. Most church cookbooks have a recipe, usually using crescent roll dough or frozen dinner roll dough. Amy Thielen features them in her "Midwestern Table," she uses spinach instead of cabbage in deference to her father-in-law. The Runza Restaurants have menu choices where they add cheese, mushrooms etc. to the basic Runza just before it is served. Theirs are rectangular with a thinner dough. Runzas (aka Bierocks) were an often requested meal in our household.
Thanks so much for sharing!
We used to love these every year at the Fresno County Fair in California. Thank you for the recipe! I remember the German lady who made them used to say “add the salt to the meat when browning and then pepper to the cabbage. If you salt the cabbage you get sauerkraut! No No No!!!”
Lol
What a great tip. Thanks for sharing!
@Cathy Murphree, Oh I miss the Bierock shop in Fresno!
@John, BEEROCK STORE IN FRSSNO WAX THE BEST THING
EVER !!! 🙏🏻
I just tried it they came out fantastic. Even though is Aztec had never done them before, but my husband loved them. I just had to try it out and sure enough they came out just great thank you.
So glad you both enjoyed them!
In he early 1970's, my Wyoming high school cafeteria made bierocks every year on St Patrick's day, a highly anticipated cafeteria meal! Although I found a bierocks recipe decades ago, I could never discover where they originated from. The name definitely sounds German, but when I quizzed German, Polish, Irish, Ukrainian, and Russian immigrants, and they all said, "Nope, never heard of them"
Thanks for the background, the tips, and the photos (I always made mine in a triangular tart-let shape, since I didn't know any better), and my recipe called for sauerkraut as well.
How fun. Interesting that German and Russian immigrants didn't know about these, but maybe they knew of them by a different name. Your version sounds delicious!
@Sarah Ozimek, I use a different dough, made only of flour, water, and salt, and then we fry them in a small amount of oil. We call them Kraut Klasse, and yes my great grandparents came from Germany =)
Wonderful! Thank you for sharing!
@Sarah Ozimek,
My husband’s family were Germans from Russia. They started out in the Volga region, of Germany, and my mother-in-law would always make beirrocks. I’m using your recipe for dinner tonight.
We hope you enjoy them!
Never in my life have I made any type of homemade bread or rolls. Your instructions were easy to follow and my bierocks looked great and tasted delicious! My grandma used to make them for me, so thank you for such a nostalgic recipe. If there are any other novice bakers out there, don’t be afraid to try this and be prepared to be super impressed with yourself.
Thanks for your comment Amber! So glad they turned out well for you and brought back memories!
We had a German bakery in town that served what I called beer-rocks. No beer and no rocks. I loved them so much that my grandma and I experimented and made our own recipe. I still make them today. They're a little more filled than yours. Although for a party once, I had my husband help me make tiny finger food sized ones. I add way much more onion and ground pepper than you do. There is something so yummy about the combination with a slightly sweet bun.
Agreed. So yummy! Thanks for sharing!
Made this using left over short ribs cooked in red wine. Meat mixture was delicious will definitely make this again.
That sounds like a heavenly filling!
These were amazing. The dough was delicious & so easy to work with. Being that my husband does not like cabbage I made a bouble batch; one original & the other substituting green pepper for the cabbage. Both were great. I do have one question; can you use a rolling pin to flatten the dough instead of pressing it with your fingers? Don't want to ruin a good thing but it would make it easier creating these little beauties. Thanks for the recipe.
Hi Mary. Glad you enjoyed them! Yes, you should be able to use a rolling pin, just be sure not to roll the dough too thin.
Such a lovely, from-scratch recipe. If you're curious "during a power outage, can I bake these on a BBQ grill on an insulated cookie sheet over indirect heat?" the answer is no, no you cannot. "Even with a digital meat thermometer to monitor heat and ensure they don't burn?" No! I made a few hockey pucks before giving up. I look forward to trying again when the power grid cooperates, because I love this authentic recipe. Next time, I will double the salt in the filling, add a little shredded mozzarella because cheese makes everything better, and add a ton of black pepper and some red pepper flakes because we Texans love spice. I will probably divide the doubled dough recipe into at least 20 rolls next time -- they were awfully big at 16 rolls. Going to try the ice cream scoop advice for filling sizing too, as that sounds tidier than trying to make consistent tablespoons. (The dim candlelight wasn't particularly helpful for consistent filling or sealing either, ha!) Of course the power came back on just in time to admire the disastrous grilled bierox I made in the dark. But with a working oven, the next batch is going to be amazing!
What a memorable experience! Thanks for sharing! Hopefully you have better luck when the power cooperates!
I made these and they turned out beautiful. I didn’t proof the dough very long but it was ok. I added egg wash before, butter after, sesame seeds on top, and red pepper flakes for spice in the meat. My daughter who was a baker’s apprentice made the suggestions. She said to add mustard seed in mix but I didn’t have any. The size was perfect @ ice cream scoop sized dough and ice cream sized scoop filling. Instead of just salt I put bullion powder for taste. My teenage boys asked if I made the bread which was a compliment because it was
“AS GOOD AS STORE BOUGHT”.
Wonderful! Your additions sound delicious. We're so glad you and your family enjoyed them!
Do we let the filling cool off before putting in dough? Thank you making your recipe right now.
Hi Rena. Yes, the filling should be cooled at least slightly. It should be cool enough to touch. Hope you enjoyed them!